Description: The Complete Actuary Managing Change by Claire Marie Burchill from The Stepping Stone Newsletter, January 2004, Issue No. 13.

Description: What to do when you are faced with two or more unattractive career options.

Description: This article discusses three reasons that people make major life changes even though it is uncomfortable, and there is uncertainty about the future. The intent of the article is to show that there are rewards in facing uncertainty, including the opportunity to practice courage, and to ultimately learn, grow, and become more confident to change in the future.

Description: Three ways to ask for more support at work if you have ever found yourself overwhelmed by your to-do list at work and know you’re capable of doing the things on the list but wonder whether you SHOULD be doing some of them.

Description: This article discusses the complexities of such a simple statement as well as highlight certain differences between tax and book treatment of that capitalization.

Description: In this article the author emphasizes, 'It doesn’t matter what you do, it matters why you do it.' He gives examples of why volunteerism, changes to the Society of Actuaries examination program, continuing professional development initiatives, etc. builds better actuaries in order to continually enhance the pre-eminence of our profession.

Description: This article provides an overview of approaches to phased retirement and offers information for employers to think about in designing and managing strategies.

Description: Increasing uncertainties and volatility in financial as well as real goods markets increasingly reveal that controlling systems based on deterministic and pseudo-exact values are insufficiently eligible to manage the business activities. This raises the question how management systems can be modified to generate the adequate management impulses in volatile periods. Risk management deals from identifying, evaluating and aggregating chances and risks, which again determine the potential fluctuation range of relevant performance indicators. Everyday corporate life shows that risk management is considered important; but the corresponding processes to identify, evaluate and report chances and risks are seldom part of established decision criteria. This “paradox” lets assume that risks are managed in various differing and unsystematic ways. The combination of traditional controlling methods and risk management is not primarily a methodological challenge. The behavior of the whole organization, practiced over a long-year period, has to be transferred into a new corporate culture of transparent dealing with chances and risks. This paper describes the necessary change management process, which has to come along with necessary methodological modifications.

Description: The actuary’s key role in the ORSA process should be to quantify the uncertainty surrounding the future financial results of the firm. By providing relevant standardized reports that clarify the uncertainty in terms easily understood by all stakeholders, the actuary will provide an essential element in the ORSA process. The dictum, "You can't manage what you can't measure." demonstrates the need to quantify risk, not just describe it qualitatively. While the ability to provide firm estimates of aggregate risk for complex organizations may not exist currently, doing so should be a target for the profession. The end result will be to enhance the financial security of the insurance industry at a time when all financial institutions are facing stakeholders skeptical about their financial condition. Part of the essay collection "Risk Metrics for Decision Making and ORSA"